Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos

Horace continued patiently scraping and sampling around my booth, like an ant in strange territory, examining every leaf, twig, and dirt clod on the off chance it might be edible. Meanwhile, Monty badgered me into describing every encounter I'd had with Roger Benson during the day. I already didn't like the way this was going. Although I was obviously still Monty's favorite suspect, he showed far too much interest in Rob, Faulk, and Tad. And also far too much interest in leering at my costume, to judge by the increasingly black looks he got from Michael.

The ambulance crew came and left with Benson. Even patient Cousin Horace was running out of forensic steam and still Monty continued questioning me.

"So, can you think of anyone else who might have a reason to dislike the deceased?" Monty said, finally. He stared intently at me, as if he suspected I was holding something back. Which I was. For the past half hour I'd been fighting the overwhelming urge to say that if disliking someone was reason for murder, Deputy Monty had better hire a bodyguard if he planned to stay in town much longer. Fortunately, Cousin Horace intervened.

"Mrs. Fenniman," he said, glancing up as he scraped little bits of dirt into a plastic bag. "I heard her say at the party that he was a no-good sneak thief, and someone should shoot him down like a rabid dog."

"But he wasn't shot," the sheriff said. "And besides, I don't think Mrs. Fenniman even owns a gun."

"I didn't say she did," Horace said. "But that's what she said."

"She has her grandfather's Civil War sword," Dad put in.

"But what does that matter if – "

"We'll put her down as having reason to dislike the deceased," Monty interrupted, looking up from his notebook.

Monty finally let me change out of my costume, under the careful scrutiny of the waiting female officer. Cousin Horace produced evidence bags large enough to hold the dress, the stays, and all the other parts of my outfit.

"Is it okay if I take my laptop and my cash box with me, for safekeeping?" I asked.

"That depends," Monty said. "Where did you leave them?"

"In one of my storage cases," I said, pointing. "The padlocked one."

The deputy looked at Cousin Horace, who shrugged.

"If it was in a locked case, why not?" he said. "Anyway, we're all finished here."

"Give me the key, then," Monty said, holding out his hand.

I handed my keyring over, with the padlock key separated out from the rest, and watched in exasperation as he let it fall back into the bunch and proceeded to try five or six other keys, including several that any halfwit should have known weren't right. Did he really think Honda made padlocks?

"Ah, that's got it," he said, when he finally got around to the right key. He removed the padlock and lifted up the lid of the case.

"I thought you wanted a computer and a cash box," he said.

"I do," I said.

"Nothing but birds in here."

"Birds?"

I ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape and went to where I could look over his shoulder. Sure enough, the case he'd just opened was filled to the brim with pink wrought-iron flamingos.

"That's the wrong case," I said.

"Only one with a padlock."

I shoved past him, ignoring his protests, and began opening the other cases. Most were empty, their former contents used to stock my booth. But I found the case where I'd stowed the computer and the cash box. The computer was there. The cash box wasn't.

"They've taken my cash box," I said.

"Nonsense, you're just looking in the wrong case," Monty said.

But my cash box wasn't in any of the cases. It wasn't anywhere in the booth.

"Maybe you took it with you when you left the booth."

"For heaven's sake, I know what I did with it," I said, exasperated. "I was going straight from the booth to Mrs. Waterston's party. Why on Earth would I lug along my cash box? I'm very sure I put it and the laptop in this case and padlocked the case to keep them safe till I got back."

"Only you didn't padlock the case," he said.

"Yes, I'm sure I did," I said.

Monty crooked an eyebrow.

"Obviously someone came in, picked the padlock, took my cash box, and – of course! That would explain what happened to Mr. Benson!" I exclaimed. "He interrupted a robbery in progress! The robber killed him, and was so rattled that he put the padlock on the wrong case."

I thought it was a brilliant theory, but Monty looked unmoved.

"That's very interesting," he said. "We'll keep that in mind as we investigate."

Yeah, sure you will, I thought.

"You ask me, the killer only took the money box to distract us," Monty said. "Whoever did it rifled the booth to make it look like a burglary and lucked out, finding you'd padlocked the wrong case. He took the cash box to make it look like a robbery, but not the computer."

"And why not the computer?" I said. "The cash box only had about a thousand dollars in it – "

"Must be nice to be rich enough not to miss a grand when you lose it," Monty said.

"I didn't say I wouldn't miss it," I said, gritting my teeth. "As a matter of fact, if you don't find it, I'll be eating macaroni and cheese till Ground Hog Day. I meant that my laptop's worth at least twice that. Why would the killer take the cash box to cover up his motive and not a much more valuable laptop?"

"Well, maybe a laptop's a lot harder for the killer to dispose of," Monty said. "One bill spends just like another, but if the killer's an amateur and doesn't know how to fence stolen goods, what's he supposed to do with a laptop? Or maybe – "

He narrowed his eyes, and I knew I wasn't going to like what he said next.

"Maybe the killer didn't want to take the laptop because he knew it was more expensive and, what's more, a lot more trouble for you to replace," he said. "Bet you've got all your business records and stuff on the laptop, right?"

I nodded.

"So maybe the killer's someone you know, and didn't want to hurt you any more than he had to."

"That's ridiculous," I said, but I didn't sound very convincing. "Besides, I just noticed something else."

"What?" Monty said, sounding impatient.

"The CD-ROM drive isn't completely closed," I said.

"Oh, for crying out loud," he muttered.

"And someone has definitely been messing with it," I said, wiping fingerprint dust off my fingers and using a corner of my sweatshirt to pull the CD drawer all the way open.

"How can you tell?"

"Look at this," I said.

"Looks like a normal CD to me," he said, giving it a cursory glance. Michael, looking over my shoulder, gave it a closer inspection, then looked up to me with one eyebrow raised.

"It's a perfectly normal CD-ROM, but it's upside down. See?" I said, picking up the CD-ROM by the edges and holding it up. "The label side was down. I was playing this game a couple of nights ago, and that's the last time I touched the CD-ROM drive. I know I didn't put it in upside down; I don't even think it would play in that position."

Deputy Monty didn't seem to find this very interesting, but he had Cousin Horace bag the laptop as evidence, too. I hoped they took me seriously and dusted the CD for prints or something; otherwise, all I'd accomplished was severely inconveniencing myself by the loss – temporary, I hoped – of my computer as well as my cash.

"Don't worry, we know how to take care of these things," Monty said, waving away my anxious questions about what fingerprint powder would do to my CD-ROM drive. "Why don't you folks go along home? We've got a lot of work to do here. And I'd like to finish as much as possible before the press show up."

So about one A.M. Michael and I finally headed back toward the encampment, hoping to avoid the Town Watch, who would probably jump at the chance to book me for running around in jeans and a sweatshirt. If the Town Watch were still awake. More likely they'd gone home like everybody else when they figured out that Monty wasn't letting anyone gawk at the crime scene. Fat lot of good they'd been at guarding things.

"Well, at least we don't have to worry about how to keep Benson from stealing Rob's software," Michael said.

"True. All we have to worry about is how to keep Rob from getting arrested for murder," I said. "Or me, for that matter."

"Surely they'll figure out from the dress that you couldn't have stabbed him," Michael said. "And Rob probably has an alibi, although I can't believe any sane person would think Rob capable of stabbing someone."

"Oh, that's interesting," I said. "I'll be cleared by forensic evidence and Rob by the strength of his character, is that it? Very complimentary."

"I wouldn't say strength of character, no," Michael said. "More the opposite, really. I think you'd have the gumption to stab someone if you had to – in self-defense, or to protect someone. But Rob? Not likely."

"True, but will a homicide detective believe that? Or a jury?"

"I'm sure it won't come to that," Michael said. "Hey, at least your dad has an alibi. He was with me the whole time you were gone."

"Well, that's a relief," I said. "And that means you have an alibi, too."

"And I'm sure your brother will."

"Which means I'll only have to worry about Faulk, and Tad, and Mrs. Fenniman, and I don't even know who else yet. I'm not sure I'm all that impressed with Deputy Monty's big-city homicide experience."

We stopped talking when we got to the edge of the encampment. Here and there we saw campfires, and when we passed one, we'd nod to the half dozen reenactors gathered around it. But most of the camp had turned in. No wonder. Everyone would have a busy day tomorrow. The men, and the few women who had enlisted in units, would be marching and drilling, firing and cleaning their muskets, and in the late afternoon, participating in a skirmish as a dress rehearsal for Sunday's pitched battle.

Meanwhile, if yesterday was anything to go by, the women would air the bedding, cook three square meals, and clean up afterwards, using water that had to be hauled an authentically inconvenient distance. Not to mention minding any children or livestock who happened to have come along, arguing with the Anachronism Police, and hunting down anything the men misplaced – which, thanks to some innate male talent, they seemed to do as easily in a six-by-eight-foot tent as in a full-sized house. And quite a few of the women would be giving the tourists demonstrations of buttermaking, soapmaking, candlemaking, quilting, and authentic colonial laundry techniques.

I noticed that none of the stragglers loafing around the campfires were women.

Eventually we left the reenactors' area and reached the crafters' section. I'd done my best to see that everyone followed Mrs. Waterston's detailed instructions on what was and wasn't allowed in camp. But whoever laid out the plan for the tent city had apparently foreseen that the crafters' efforts at authenticity would be just a little more haphazard, half-hearted, and implausible than those of the more experienced reenactors. They'd put us at the back, as far as possible from the road – which wasn't really a hardship; we were closer to the water tanks and the privies.

Michael and I ducked into our tent. An authentic period tent, made of off-white canvas. The rope ties that held the flaps closed on either end didn't do much to keep out the bugs; I had my doubts about whether it was waterproof; and it cost several times what a cheap, modern, nylon tent would have. But it was undoubtedly authentic.

And tiny. About six feet wide at the base, eight feet long, and too short for either of us to stand upright. Michael and I had a hard enough time sharing it, and I felt sorry for the rank-and-file colonial soldiers, who supposedly slept six to a tent of this size.

While I tried to straighten out our bedroll, Michael managed to find and light a small battery-powered lantern.

"Alone at last," he said. "Too bad Deputy Monty insisted on keeping the stays as well as the gown."